The Druckfarben story began in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough in the mid 1980s, where guitarist Ed Bernard and drummer Troy Feener began exchanging musical interests in grade 9 art class. Ed introduced Troy to the progressive rock of Yes and Gentle Giant?---and soon the two started playing music together. One day, in the hall of their abandoned factory rehearsal space, the young musicians discovered some black barrels with a strange word stenciled on them...? Druckfarben. As they tried to imagine the contents of the mysterious barrels, Ed joked that one day they would be in a band together, and they would call it Druckfarben.

So they did.
Druckfarben released their debut album earlier this year and I caught up with them. Both Peter Murray and Ed Bernhard answered my questions.

Your
biography has been covered in your ProgArchives profile so let's bypass the
biography details. But which bands were you influenced by and why did you choose
that name ?

Ed: Troy and I have neen in bands together since the 1980s. One band rehearsed
in an abandoned factory where there were several large barrels of unknown
contents with "Druckfarben: stenciled on them. I used to label the cassette
recordings of our rehearsals "Druckfarben" just for a joke. I still have these
cassettes to this day. You can read more about this in our bio.

Peter: “Our biography explains the band name in the first paragraph. We all have a
very wide variety of influences, both in and out of the prog world. But we all
share a love of the great classic prog bands, I’d say especially Yes, Genesis,
Gentle Giant and King Crimson.For myself, I’d add that some of my other
favourites include the Beatles, XTC, Radiohead and King’s X.”

Toronto is mostly known for the RST bands. Rush, Saga
and Triumph. How is the music scene in Toronto now, 30 - 40 years later
?

Ed: I've been a huge Rush
fan since their "A Farewell To Kings" period. In the early 90s I played a few
gigs with Jim Gilmour and Steve Negus of Saga and Troy has played with Rik
Emmett. The music scene here in Toronto has changed quite a bit since then I
think. There used to be a lot of places to play as a band and still make a bit
of money doing it. When I first started playing professionally it was all week
long engagements. That soon turned to weekend work and now it can be hard to
find regular gigs, especially for a progressive rock band. Our monthly prog jam
at Roc N Docs in Port Credit (a suburb of Toronto) is going very well and gives
us hope that we're doing the right thing.

Peter: “The Toronto scene is kind of unfocused now. I’d say there are now
many, many small scenes in Toronto. It’s fragmented. But that’s not all bad...
We’re very happy and fortunate that so many prog fans in Toronto have been
supporting us... and our monthly prog jam (at Roc N Docs in Port Credit, just
outside of Toronto) has helped us become central players in a growing prog
community in the area.”

Over to your
debut album. Please tell us more about your self titled album.

Ed: I had a few of these songs already which we worked
up as a band and of course they changed as a result of input from the other
guys. Phil, Will and I got together in my studio on a number of occasions and
everything we wrote in those sessions appears on the record. We are very happy
with the response so far and we're excited to get out and play it live for as
many people as possible.

Peter: “We worked on this album over a period of two to three years, in various
studios and our own home studios. Ed was the driving force behind the production
and most of the writing, but we all put a lot of work into it you can clearly
hear all our musical personalities on the record. Working on a record for so
long, it’s hard to maintain objectivity about it, but I think we’re now all able
to listen back and enjoy it. Happily the response has been fantastic, so that
seems to indicate that we did a good job!”There is no denying you sounds like Yes. But how would
you describe your sound and music?

Ed: We are all lifelong fans of Yes. Thank
you for the comparison! We try to write songs that are adventurous, not
constrained by outside preconceptions of marketabilty or commerciality. We also
don't want to write crazy songs just for the sake of it either. Melody is very
important to us all and we want it to be the focus in our music. It's hard for
me to be objective about our album .I think we're an amalgamation of all the
classic bands we have listened to for years but I think there's a uniqueness to
our music as well. Something Steve Morse said years ago really resonated with
me. He said he thinks of his music as "electronic chamber music" I like the
sound of that!

Peter: “Although we are all very serious about our individual playing and
singing, I think we all really believe in the power of the song, and we want our
music to have more depth musically and collaboratively than just being a show of
technical skill. We want our music to be highly listenable, and not just by
musicians. That’s how we feel about the great classic prog that we all
love—although it was full of great and interesting playing, it was also very
melodic and memorable, and deep enough musically to set a mood when you put it
on. We hope to achieve the same.”What is your plans now ? Touring,
promotions, continuing with your other projects, starting on a new album or what
is your plans for this and next year ?

Ed: We're trying to make sure this album
gets heard by as many fans of this type of music as possible. We're getting
quite a bit of interest in Europe which is a great thing. We're looking at
headlining in some of the bigger venues here in Toronto and keeping our eyes
peeled for opening spots on tours with bands we admire. We were privledged to
open for Tony Levin's Stickmen last year and that went very well for us. Now
that the album's finished we're diving in head first.

Peter: “We’re promoting our CD locally and internationally via web promotions,
and will be creating some videos to support that. We’re hoping to play more and
more in support of the album, especially at prog festivals. We will likely start
working on our second album in the not-too-distant future, but it makes sense to
focus our energies on promoting this one for a while first!”

To
wrap up this interview, is there anything you want to add to this interview
?

Ed: Thanks for your interest! it's great to see that there is a scene for this
music that's still very vital.

Peter: “Thanks to ProgArchives for providing such a great resource to prog fans
around the world!”

Torodd, this band is frickin' amazing! They are outstanding musicians, the nerds if you will of prog, take their work seriously 100% give it their whole, outstanding musicianship, very clever, spot on perfect rhythmic timing with so much excitement too! Also their vocalist Phil Naro brings the added umphf excitement taking it up a notch, Phil Naro reminds me of David Dyron from Urian Heep, his vocals are both like Byron and Daniel Gildenlow a 4 octave range with the most emotion, thrilling with build up layers and come down, the true chicken skin feeling (goose bumps) and most thrilling insync with instrumentals sensation :) hugs to you, Torodd

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Great band!They've released one of my favourite modern debuts, a really promising start. Excellent material and superb musicianship and yes...great vocals! But for some reason their second album didn't click with me at all, too technical I think, without those beautiful melodies like in the previous album.

haven't gotten the second album yet!! but reviews I've read seem to indicate that it's very good.

they remind me a bit of Echolyn - the 70's influences are very much there but they don't feel like a "vintage" band to me. in the end it comes down to some really superb material and great performances all around. right now "Influenza" is my favorite, I haven't seen anyone so completely nail Steve Howe's style like that, this song is just like classic Yes in all the best ways. There are also some passages on the first album that are downright gorgeous. Can't wait to receive the second :)

Druckfarben are a great band and really nice guys to boot. I've seen them live a few times and bought the first album, looking forward to buying the second one at a gig--or I'll get around to ordering it! Great stuff!

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